January 15, 2013

first ride i've recorded this far north. this was pretty much a pure climbing ride, just 6km out of nan city & you're already climbing mountains.

originally wanted to ride nan-chiang muan (route 1091) but was told that road had some construction on it. so i took the "easy" way out & headed north to thung chang (plain of elephants i guess) on route 1080 instead. turned out it wasn't so easy. the route ran alongside the nan river valley & is heavily dissected by streams running off the mountain into the river. this meant the route ran through a set of short (100-300m) but sharp (alpine grade) climbs--hundreds of them. net result was the battering kind of snuck up on me.

the road from pua to thung chang was pretty rough & the speeds coming down the mountain meant my arms took quite a violent shaking, so much so i couldn't feel my arms by the time i got to thung chang. even worse on the way back down to pua.

all in all, though, an excellent ride. it was through decently forested mountains, mostly good surfaced road (with the exception of the pua-thung chang leg) and little traffic. do it again in a heart-beat.